Log Date: 7/7/98, 7/8/98 Log Cast: Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, Leia Organa-Solo Log Intro: Han and Leia and Chewie have returned to Calamari to receive the unexpected word that Mon Mothma and the NR Council want Han to take command of the New Republic Army... and much to Han's surprise and chagrin, he's finding himself accepting the job. Although he's managed to take advantage of the inevitable bureaucratic delays in such a change of command to eke out every scrap of time he can to spend with his wife, a new development takes place that fills the Corellian, the Princess, the Wookiee, and many others in NR headquarters with simultaneous relief and dismay: Luke Skywalker has come home. But it's a Luke who's exhausted, disoriented, and abused as a result of his Imperial captivity, and as Han, Leia, and the rest of the young Jedi's close circle of friends discover as they trade shifts visiting him in the base medical center, it's a Luke with a more troubling kind of damage as well.... ---------- For about the fifth time en route back from the NR base's Infirmary, synchronized with the soft whoosh of the suite doors as he and Lando Calrissian pass the night sentries out in the base corridors, Han Solo mutters, "By the Original Light, Junior looks like crap..." Shaking his head in what can't quite settle between immense relief and immense dismay, the Corellian waves his friend on into the living room, then shoves that same hand through his already rumpled hair, unconsciously. "He's looked a lot worse," Lando says, attempting to be consoling. He's seen that look on Han's face before, though... that worried determination. Pacing, Lando forges on, "Let's face it... you've looked a lot worse. He's going to be fine, don't worry." The door safely whooshed shut behind them, Han lets out a low, restless "aaaaah", his brows drawn down low over hazel eyes. He jerks a thumb off to the cabinet wherein is stored what's left of his brandy stash -- kept down to respectable levels, out of consideration for Leia, though Han would never admit to such a thing -- and asks gruffly, "You want anything, pal?" He goes on with nary a breath in between, "Ah, hells. Yeah, we've all been through the back end of a bantha four or five times apiece, but it's different when it's Junior, ya know?" Lando's mind races back to the clumsy escape from Cloud City, balancing precariously on the _Falcon_ while pulling a battered and abused Luke from a wobbly antennae. "It's different," Lando conceeds, then continues, donning a cheery smile, "But he's back, he's safe, and he still has most of his body parts, right? I'll have a tall glass of some of your best, if you're pouring." Han manages a slightly weak version of his usual lopsided grin, inwardly thankful that Luke hasn't misplaced any more hands or anything else apparently vital -- though it troubles the Corellian deeply that the young Jedi seems nevertheless... beaten down somehow, in a way Han lacks the ability to define. He opens up the cabinet, though, and pours out a couple of shots of brandy for himself and Lando. Turning over one glass to his friend, Han then flops down on the semi-circle couch and chucks down half his own glass before glowering anxiously at the far well. "Yeah," he murmurs, "he's back. That's what's important..." Lando brings the glass to his nose, sniffing it as one would measure a wine's bouquette, while his eyes move to study the lanky Corellian sprawled on the couch. He takes a hesitant sip of the liquour, then a more brazen gulp, then begins gliding towards a chair near the circular couch. He says as he takes the seat, "He'll be up and on his feet in no time, you just watch." The front door to the Solo dwelling opens and closes inobtrusively, a footfall light as the proverbial feather can be heard, then the bedroom door opens and closes. Then silence. The stuff has bite -- nothing Han buys doesn't. Han barely seems to notice it, nevertheless, parked there on the couch with his long legs stuck out before him, one hand curled around the half-drained shot glass, the other tapping a restless tattoo out on the golden stripe running down the side of his trousers. The door makes his head snap up, though, and he calls out, "Leia?" Lando purses his lips thoughtfully, and sits up a little straighter. He rests his glass on his knee as his dark eyed gaze follows Han's toward the direction of the sound. No answer comes from the bedroom; whoever is within the confines of the room is remaining quiet or simply did not hear Han's call. Blinking, Han sits up, and glances sidelong at Lando as if to ask, 'Huh?' "I wonder if she knows somethin' we don't," he muses, rising in one smooth motion to his feet and moving closer to the bedroom doors. "Hey, Leia?" Still following his friend's lead, Lando rises, casually resting the glass on a handy table as rises to his full height. Immediately, worry enters his brow. He's been gambling long enough to know when a bad hand has been dealt. Blanketting his features in sabacc coolness, Lando remains silent as he follows Han slowly toward the bedroom door. Several seconds of silence follow; a throat is cleared within the room, then Leia's distinctively rich voice: "Yes, Han?" Han doesn't thumb the door to the bedroom open, though he doesn't need to; it's stayed open, set to stay that way unless privacy is required. "Everything okay?" he calls. Lando remains silent behind Han, beginning to feel like a third leg on a taun-taun. His gaze drifts momentarilly toward some inconsequential decoration on a wall as he waits for the bomb to drop and the bad news to flow. The door slides into the wall, perhaps unexpectedly, and Leia stands within the now-opened doorway. Though she has meticulously wiped her cheeks, her eyelashes glimmer with moisture. "I knew I'd have to tell you both sometime. It's just difficult to see, that's all." Han, taken aback by the sight of his wife crying -- or at least, having failed to hide the signs of it -- pauses only a moment before demanding in a voice still roughened with the worry Lando already saw written on his face, "What is it, Princess?" Again, the awkwardness. Lando's eyes fix on Leia's facial features, and he swallows silently behind Han. That's not a look you want to see on the face of someone brave enough to turn towards a squadron of tie fighters in a broken down old freighter. "I can't sense him at all," Leia explains candidly, her voice rock steady despite the deep-seated horror this event has caused. "We stayed together for a while, and he tried to sense me, but...nothing. He can't feel or sense anything through the Force. At all." For a few moments, it seems as if the import of this is lost on Han. Hazel eyes linger a trifle blankly on the Princess, before their gaze suddenly sharpens, something going 'click' behind them. Stepping to Leia, reaching a hand for her shoulder, the Corellian begins to scowl again. "Whaddya mean, he can't sense anything... how can that be?" Though it takes him a moment, Lando feels the gravity of what Leia has just said like that momentary flutter in the stomach just before and just after hyperspace. Only the butterfly sensation in his stomach doesn't go away. His mind tries to grapple the idea of gambling without fingers to hold cards, or eyes to read them. Frowning deeply, he looks between Han and Leia before saying, "How is he taking that?" Leia squares her shoulders at Han's offering of sympathy and support, and a glimmer of the old Organa pride shines through any distress. "Not well," she tells Lando, a bland understatement, then explains to them both, "It's something Valak did. He wants a chance to sleep before seeing if he can break through it himself. I'm sure he can." Standing on tiptoes to kiss her husband's cheek, Leia steps back into the bedroom and remarks, "I'm going to shower and lie down for a bit. You two..." Past Han's shoulder goes her gaze, and the evidence of a bare smile is seen on her lips. "Have fun." Han manages another lopsided smile, sensitive enough to sense 'need to be alone' vibes from his beloved, troubled enough not to make an immediate crack, much less a beeline for what's left of the brandy. "Alright," he rumbles simply, his voice dropping down into a husky register. _Luke is a survivor,_ Lando thinks, taking a step backwards, away from Han and Leia. Again, the memory of pulling Luke into the Falcon as he cradled his abused arm that no longer ended in a hand comes to mind. Such pain and loss... "When he wakes up, I think he's going to need a cup of hot chocolate and a lesson in sabacc. What do you think, Han?" "Hot chocolate or not...I just thought you two should know," Leia explains thinly. The difference in Leia -- from the jubilant mood when Luke arrived on Calamari to this somber princess -- is acute and uneasy. She purses her lips as if to say something further, thinks better on it, and without another syllable disappears further into the bedroom through a door that would have to lead to the bath. "Sounds like a plan to me," agrees the Corellian, stepping back from Leia to let her depart as she will, though he doesn't move far as he watches her go. Once Leia leaves, he does thumb the door closed behind her, before turning slightly round to Lando, murmuring, "Aaaaaah... hells." Lando turns his head, giving his glass of nearly forgotten liquour a forlorn look before turning back to Han and saying, "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm of the mindset that we either have too much in our glasses already, or not nearly enough." [It doesn't take much for the two long-time friends and former smugglers to apply themselves to the problem of emptying their glasses, while trying to mutually convince themselves that Luke's going to be all right. And some time later...] Perhaps surprisingly, the brandy hasn't been finished off; there's a good portion of the expensive stuff left when Han finally puts it away again in its cabinet and sends Lando on his way. Even while talking to his friend, his mind hasn't left his wife... or the plight of her brother... and Han is frowning to himself as he slips into the bedroom. But it's helped some that Lando has shown himself to be as mellow as it's possible to be under the circumstances; it's a resilience that Han himself developed a long time ago. Thus, the Corellian's frown is only a slight one, and not a scowl. "Leia?" he calls quietly, as the door slides open to admit him. The room is darkened save for illumination provided by light from the bathroom...which, by the way, is one of Leia's particular luxuries. She can live with squalor or even efficiency in most aspects of her life, but the bathroom is something she finds especially relaxing. She has been utilizing it, apparently, because she is sitting on the bed wrapped in a towel; her hair is likewise swaddled in white terrycloth, and her expression, scrubbed clean of the light cosmetics she wears, is wan and worried. Han shrugs out of his vest, draping it across the back of a chair, before settling down on the bed just beside his wife, studying her levelly. Then, without a word, he slips his arms around her, and tugs her lightly, encouraging her to curl up against him. Little impetus is required for Leia to comply, though a certain stiffness in her muscles implies an odd distance between them, at least emotionally. Still, for Han's sake, she musters a thin-lipped smile and kisses his cheek with greater sincerity than is evidenced in her smile. Perhaps he senses that emotional distance, for his embrace is light... almost companionable, rather than sensual. Han has never been the most sensitive of men, but he knows the Princess's body language, and he seems content to just hold her for the time being. Finally, though, he murmurs huskily, "Sweetheart, I can't pretend to know a thing about the Force... but I know Junior. He'll be okay." "I know he will be," Leia concurs with the sentiment, even if her assurance is hollow, "at least mentally I know it, Han. I hadn't realized how accustomed I'd become to sensing him, and now that he's back it's..." Vocabulary fails her; she has never had to explain something like this before. How does one successfully explain an eclipse within one's soul, with something blotting out a light she had come to take for granted? "I'm sorry, Han. I just find this disquieting." It's apparent to the Corellian that Leia is struggling for proper words; searchingly, he studies her, and nods once as she finishes. Lifting a hand to stroke the Princess's shoulder, he blows out a sigh and murmurs, "Guess it'd kinda be like... if Chewie'd come back blind or something. Or the _Falcon_'d been..." He can't quite finish _that_ thought; his voice roughens up slightly, and he finishes with a gruff, "Well, y'know." Somehow, oddly, the Corellian's attempts at comforting Leia win a rueful smile and bleed tension from her shoulder muscles. Reaching behind her to unwrap the towel about her head, she tells Han with vibrant adoration in her alto, "If that ship could take care of all of your needs, Han Solo, I think you'd have married the _Falcon_ instead." Han's mouth curls up on one end, and he plants a kiss atop his wife's hair once it's revealed. "Well, there's all _kinds_ of... technological enhancements, if you know where to buy 'em," he teases lightly, "but there's just some needs I prefer real women for." Leia's brown brow creates a fetching arch over her right eye. "I hope," she observes as she nestles against Han's reassuring side, "that was singular." She pauses, savoring the emotion of being loved, before murmuring, "I'm really worried about Luke." Han promptly kisses that arched brow and assures, "Cross my heart." Then his expression turns more earnest, more solemn, and he adds, "Think we all are, honey. You and me and Chewie and Lando. Hell, even Goldenrod and Artoo've been chattering about the kid." "I left Chewie with him," Leia explains while reluctantly removing herself from Han's embrace to seek a brush for that luxuriant mane of brown. Head leaning over, she begins to brush, inwardly grateful for a distraction. "He's not used to being Force-blind, Han. He can't care for himself, and I'm worried that if NRI can get him from the Imperials, they can get him back while he's still in this condition." Han's brows knit over his eyes at the words 'can't care for himself.' "Uh, honey--" He pulls in a breath, trying to suppress a sudden surge of irritation. "Just 'cause he's..." And he waves a hand, looking for words of his own. "... just 'cause the kid's had the Force turned off in him doesn't mean he's _dead_. We got you off the first Death Star without it, y'know." Leia flips back her hair, brushed out but of course still streaming with water to create clumping tendrils along her bare shoulders, and replies, "Did you? Are you sure of that? Luke and I've discussed it, and we're not certain everything happened just like that. I mean..." She sits down beside Han again, hand resting on his knee. "How did I know that garbage chute was there?" Not certain he likes the way this conversation is going, Han begins to frown again, protesting, "Oh, come on, sweetheart, there _was_ an enormous grate right there! What else could it have been besides a garbage chute?" "It was a lot of coincidence and luck," Leia protests lightly, though a gentle smile has supplanted her expression. "And I don't know that there's any such thing as luck." Han jabs a thumb at his own chest. "Well, _I_ know," he proclaims staunchly. "Look, Leia -- I feel for Luke, I do... but he's a big boy. Even without the Force. If he can stand, run, see, shoot, and think, he can take care of himself. Most of us get along without the Force just fine, y'know." Leia's tone of voice is as gentle as her smile had been, hand closing about his thumb to draw it away. "He's hurt too, you know. Chewie and I will stay with him while he recouperates, then we'll figure out something." Han's expression turns a touch awkward at the reminder of his own impending departure, even as he nods, his fingers closing around his beloved's. "I can't delay going to Sluis Van much longer," he mutters. The scrap of smile vanishes and is replaced by a touch of melancholy. "I know," Leia murmurs, "I know. .I wanted to go with you, but with Luke here now...you'll have your work, and I have my duties...." Han puts on a brave bit of crooked smile. "And your brother." So much for the brave princess. Leia lays a soft-skinned palm against Han's cheek and whispers, "But he's not my husband," before punctuating that hint of weakness with a tender kiss. [End log.]